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IN KYIV, WE DON’T BELIEVE IN THE FANTASY OF TRUMP’S ‘PEACE
DEAL’. OUR REALITY IS MORE DEAD CIVILIANS  
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Nataliya Gumenyuk
April 25, 2025
The Guardian
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_ At the scene of the deadliest attack on our capital this year, I
see the war on Ukraine is still very real – and Putin shows no signs
of ending it _

Young people wait while rescuers search for their 17-year-old friend,
Danya Khudya, killed along with his parents in an apartment block hit
by a Russian missile strike in Kyiv, 24 April 2025, Photograph:
Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

 

War teaches you to believe only in what happens, rather than what is
merely said or promised. A day after the “peace talks” in London
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which the US secretary of state Marco Rubio didn’t even turn up for,
Ukrainians were not anxiously waiting for the results of a possible
deal, which looked unfeasible anyway. Instead, they were counting
their dead [[link removed]].

According to Ukraine’s air force, in the early hours of Thursday
morning Russia launched
[[link removed]] 11 Iskander
ballistic missiles, 37 KH-101 cruise missiles, six Iskander-K cruise
missiles, 12 Kalibr cruise missiles, 4 KH-59/KH-69 missiles and 145
drones. For Kyiv and Kharkiv residents that night, this was not just a
case of reading numbers on a news feed, but hearing and feeling
explosions rock their cities. It turned out to be the deadliest night
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capital this year.

“Not necessary and very bad timing
[[link removed]],” Donald Trump later wrote on
social media. But, Ukrainians might ask, when would be a better time
to kill 12 civilians and injure at least 90?

Most people were asleep in the western suburbs of Kyiv that were hit
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Most of the homes in a five-story apartment block were damaged. A
ballistic missile – allegedly North Korean
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destroyed an older two-story house. Most of the casualties lived
there.

At the time of writing – late afternoon on Thursday – rescue
workers and firefighters had been working on the pile of rubble for 15
hours. A group of teenagers came to watch. Some arrived early in the
morning because their friend and schoolmate, Danya Khudya, 17, lived
in that house with his parents. Earlier, Danya’s sister was sent to
the hospital, but the boy was missing under the rubble
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So, the kids started to search, helping the rescue workers and the
police. “Is he alive?” they kept asking.

US military aid for Ukraine is about to cease. Is Europe ready?
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By the end of the day, more than 50 young people were there silently
gazing into the rubble behind the tape. They stood, hardly moving,
just hugging each other. They were waiting for a miracle. It didn’t
happen. Around 5pm, Danya’s body was found. The relatives were asked
to identify the body. His parents, Vika and Oleh, had died, too.

In front of the house, I saw a man, his face covered with shrapnel
injuries , standing in his slippers. He was offered help – someone
asked if he needed proper shoes. But he refused and didn’t
understand why he was being treated as a victim. He said that he had
everything at home. Should he be grateful?

I have written before about how Kyivites have turned their anger into
action
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They are still doing that now, but there is also something else in the
air – a sense of confusion and bewilderment. Is this the new normal?

I think this is because residents of the capital had become used to
Ukraine’s air defences protecting the city. The first Patriots
[[link removed].] –
the US army’s central air defence system – arrived in Kyiv
[[link removed]] a
year after the invasion in February 2022. The system proved capable of
intercepting and destroying the Kinzhal
[[link removed]], a Russian
hypersonic ballistic missile. Vladimir Putin had boasted
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were “invincible”. Since then, hundreds of them have been repelled
in the air above Ukraine’s cities and towns.

But there are fewer than 10 air defence systems in Ukraine
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this is simply not enough for what is, after all, the second-largest
country in Europe after Russia. Recently, Ukraine’s president,
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, made a request to the US to buy – not to be
given – 10 additional Patriot systems
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treated it as a joke
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as an example of Ukrainian warmongering.

This matters because the missiles for the Patriots are the most
important part of US military aid (beyond intelligence) that European
partners can’t deliver themselves. Even if allies try to buy them
for Ukraine [[link removed]], it is up to
the US to permit outsourcing them. On top of that, Washington can
remotely restrict use of the system, as it retains control over the
technology and components, which rely on US software updates and radar
configurations.

This is the real leverage that the US has against Ukraine – the
cudgel it could use to force Kyiv into accepting peace on Russian
terms. Those terms include
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the frontline, Ukraine conceding up to 20% of its sovereign land and
relying on Moscow’s goodwill that it would not attack again. In
comparison, Russia might receive not just recognition by the US of
illegally annexed Ukrainian territories, but also the lifting of US
sanctions.

Ukrainians don’t have the luxury of indulging in the fantasies and
distortions of Truth Social, or X, or Russian state TV. They have no
choice but to believe in the rockets flying over their heads, the news
of dead neighbours – in short, in reality. The events of this week
are about as vivid a demonstration you can get that the war is still
happening, that it is real, and that Moscow has no real desire to end
it.

_Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist and CEO of the Public
Interest Journalism Lab_

_The Guardian [[link removed]] is globally renowned
for its coverage of politics, the environment, science, social
justice, sport and culture. Scroll less and understand more about the
subjects you care about with the Guardian's brilliant email
newsletters
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free to your inbox._

* Ukraine
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* Russia
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* Vladimir Putin
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* Donald Trump
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